


itch

by poalimal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Cissexism?, France in '43, Gen, M/M, Medical Racism, Multiple identities, POV shift, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 21:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7949890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'I -iihhn't geh <i>no</i>-buddy preghnut,' Bucky said, scowling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	itch

**Author's Note:**

> This is an odd one.

  

Later it would seem as though it had all happened very quickly, their lives once again changing forever. Natasha took one look at Sam and said, 'We have to get him to the emergency room.'

Sam lolled his head over on the couch, dazing from how the red of her hair throbbed against his sight. 'I'm fine,' he sighed, letting his eyes close. 'I'm just tired; I'll be fine.'

'Hey, birdbrain,' said Bucky. 'Get up. You smell wrong.'

Sam opened his eyes and there was Bucky, crouching before him, staring up at him. He hardly looked worried, unlike the hovering clang of colours that was Steve somewhere behind him. The lines of him were crisp and dark and clean against Sam's eyes; he could look all he wanted, and it just plain didn't hurt.

'Sam, can you stand?' asked Steve. No - Sam could not.

 

* * *

 

Like Sam, Abel Jordan had had asthma as a kid; like Sam, Abel once broke his right hand; and, like Sam, Abel came from a long line of beta-nulls.

'It's possible you may have consumed a bad batch of trick salt,' Dr Talen said, hours after they'd forced his temperature down.

'Trick salt?' said Sam--Abel. Said Abel.

Dr Talen scribbled something down on his clipboard. 'As you are so clearly aware,' he said, which wasn't the best opener a doctor had ever led-in with, 'trick salt causes artificially induced thermis with either alpha classification, or in omega negatives.

'There is, of course, no quality control to begin with, with street drugs--' here he sent Sam a long narrow look '--but even pure trick salt can be extremely dangerous for beta-nulls. I hope you realise how fortunate you are to have walked away with just a fever and some muscle weakness this time. Next time, you might not be so lucky.'

Sam, who'd already been through plenty of bullshit with people in lab coats, would've argued the point and insisted again that he hadn't taken anything - but Abel was calm, retiring and (for his own safety) not one to make waves.

'I certainly hope there isn't a next time,' he agreed.

 

* * *

 

The usual regimen was prescribed: antibiotics twice-daily for 12 days, painkillers as needed, and cycle-steadies for a month.

'$420?' Bucky whistled, peering over his shoulder at the receipts. Sam jumped. Bucky must've followed him into the CVS; he hadn't scented him at all. 'Guess we're having ramen tonight.'

'Count your blessings,' Sam said, rubbing at the hollows of his eyes. 'That's with the insurance.'

'Then our insurance isn't very good,' said the supersoldier with the impenetrable immune system. Sam shrugged, slumped, and shut his eyes.

A few seats over, a teen was speaking softly to a hiccoughing toddler: I know it hurts, baby, I know. For a moment Sam pretended--well, it didn't matter what he pretended. The pounding of his head eased very gradually.

'Hey, Sam?' Sam tilted toward the sound of Bucky's voice, the rich, flat fullness of his smell. 'Steve said--people don't really talk about this kind of stuff the same anymore, so you can just tell me to back off or whatever, and we'll be square - but I knew something was off ever since we got you off The Raft...and I should've said something.'

The Raft? That had been--two safehouses ago. Jesus. An actual lifetime ago.

Sam opened his eyes half-way and found that he was--if not quite _draped_ over the side of Bucky's chair, then definitely leaning with intent. He sat up straight and clasped his hands in his lap, over the small rainforest of receipts.

'Off?' he said. His throat clicked when he swallowed. 'Off how?'

Bucky took one of Sam's hands, bent his nose to the wrist, cool and dry to the warm and wet; made an odd expression. 'Well, off, like...like, you smell itchy, now.'

Sam tugged his hand loose. 'Itchy like I make you want to scratch something?' The pounding in his head felt as though it was radiating throughout his entire body. Less of a pounding now, actually; more of a throb. 'Or itchy like...I need something scratched.'

Bucky closed his eyes; breathed in deep. 'Hmhh...both.' Well. That was just great.

Sam let his head fall back against the wall behind the chairs with a thump. The pain was good - it distracted him from everything else. The slow dull thud of his heart; the fact that he was sweating again; the fear.

He breathed in slow. Stilled his senses on the steady press of Bucky's shoulder next to his. There he was, here Sam was...here they fucking were. 'Well, I appreciate your self-restraint.'

'Yea,' said Bucky, softly, watching him, 'you and everybody else.'

 

* * *

 

'That doctor was an idiot,' Natasha declared, 30 minutes later, when Sam came back out to the car, armed with his new meds and a fever of 104. 'Trick salt doesn't do this. You've smelled different for months now.'

'That's what I said,' said Bucky, clicking into his seat belt. Two cars in a row honked them down - the next nearest hospital was nearly 50 miles away, in Hartford.

'I didn't want to say anything,' Steve said. 'I know some people take supplements...I wasn't sure it was my business.'

Good old Steve, Sam thought, turning into his side. So big, so broad, so good-smelling. So good at hugs! 'Steve, man,' said Sam, 'gimme one a'them hugs.' Steve narrowed in on him - froze, and then started looking at Natasha instead.

'Steve,' Natasha said. 'Don't.'

'Aw, Nat, no need to be jealous,' Sam said, grinning all over. 'You can give me a hug, too.' From the front seat, Bucky snorted - and it was like a cold bucket of sour cream all over Sam's head.

'Aw, jeez,' said Sam, mortified, dry-mouthed, 'sorry, guys.'

Steve's face was the pinkest Sam had ever seen it. 'It's totally fine, Sam,' he said, unsubtly rolling down the window. 'Don't worry about it. You know how I--'

Sam tuned him out, shutting his eyes tight against the brightness of the air. Like little knives on his cheeks, he remembered thinking - and that was the last thing he was aware of for quite some time.

 

* * *

 

He remembered the Raft. How they kept those bright lights turned on them at all hours. How everything was grey, and cold, and dull. How the water tasted flat and wrong, and the food tasted bland and wrong. How he'd lost days and now wanted never to find them.

The drip from Scott's sink one cell over. The sound of Wanda crying after being put in the jacket that first night. The man in the lab coat with the damp hands.

What had he said?

 _You will be a marvel_. A hand on his lower stomach; a day he'd left long behind. _Through you we will work miracles_.

 

* * *

 

Dr Dosanjh was perplexed by his symptoms: hyper- and hyposensitivity, elevated white blood cell count, low blood pressure, nausea, inconsistent scent pattern, and a fever that took hours to go down.

'But what I'm most concerned about, Mr Jordan,' she said, 'are your lab results. Three hours ago your bloodwork identified you as a slightly feverish beta-null; now your results read as if you're a pre-thermic omega-positive. And no drug I know of, pharmaceutical or off-market, can do that.'

She wanted to reach out to a colleague of hers in Cambridge, see how Sam was feeling in the morning. Sam, who now knew Abel Jordan was dead in the water, made all the agreeable noises necessary, and then checked himself out at 3AM.

'Are you sure about this, Sam?' Steve said, rubbing his eyes. Bucky and Natasha were both pretending to be asleep. They'd all been waiting in the car for hours, and smelled now of stale McDonalds for their trouble. 'Maybe we should stay. We don't know what we're getting into here...and whatever it is, it'll probably catch up with us sooner or later.'

'I pick later,' said Sam. 'Whatever they did to me, on the Raft--' He shook his head, unable to make eye contact while Steve made that face. 'They're going to be looking at hospitals. So we have to go, and we have to go now.'

'Shame,' said Natasha, suddenly stretched out and wide awake. 'I really wanted to try Bucky's house-warming hummus.'

'If you can get us out of here, Nat,' Bucky said, low-voiced, 'I'll make you all the damn hummus you want.'

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

Pro-side: Nat got him and Sam on a plane out of Dallas before a full 48 hours had even passed. Con-side: Sam passed out right before the plane landed, so Bucky had to nearly carry him into the shuttle.

'Driver probably thought I was kidnapping you,' Bucky said, even though Sam wasn't responsive, and hadn't been responsive since before Bucky had changed out his clothes and wiped him down and clean. 'I said we'd just come back from backpacking through the Andes. You got food poisoning, but you're gonna be ok.' He patted the pillow next to Sam's head; did not think about the radio alert he'd heard only a snippet of ( _\--may be travelling under the alias Abel Jordan_ ). He would think about that later; for now, there was Sam.

The man himself scrunched up his nose, sneezed, mumbled to himself, then rolled onto his other side.

'You're gonna be ok,' Bucky told Sam's back. Sam's back did not reply.

 _Ding_! He dug out his new phone; took a while to figure out how to unlock it without Sam old-manning him through it.

A text. Unknown number. _guy ok ?_ Nat, then.

 _Temperature is down_ , typed Bucky, _but he has been asleep for a while_.

_keep dry, hydrated. see if u cn get him up + eating. will check back 3 hr_

Five minutes later: _bud says france 43 if u have to (??)_

Bucky rolled his eyes. Always so dramatic, Steve. _Tell Bud there is enough water to go around_.  _But I will keep piss drinking in the back of my mind. Thanks_.

 

* * *

 

The town at the bottom of the hill was shit to get to: just the one steep hell road. One too-quick car, and that was the end of him. Bucky opted to go over the railing and climb down the slope instead. Nearly slipped and broke his neck a few times. Always a good time.

Somewhere near the bottom, the heavy scent of water started making itself known. There was a large body of water, somewhere; lake, maybe, couple hundred miles. Man-made? Hard to scent the whole of it from this distance. Something for later exploration, then. He put it from his mind, continued climbing till he reached ground flat enough to walk down.

His nose took him past a startled flock of birds and out through the trees, thick and dark and hugging the side of the road. It was wide enough there to walk without fear of vehicular manslaughter, so he kept at it, right out there in the open.

Only two cars passed. A shiny gold truck with an old white-braided woman inside; and a violet two-seater with a man and girl inside, the girl, her nose and fro pressed flat up against the window.

Town from there was only a few miles, brisk enough at a clip. Sun was still out by the time Bucky made it in. Next to the hardware store was a JACKSON'S GENERAL that looked promising.

The woman inside -- 40's, military bearing, beta-null or perfumed as one -- straightened up all the way when she saw him. She blinked. 'You're not from around here.'

Bucky plucked a few nose-plugs from the counter-display. 'What gave me away?' He took in her blank stare, the small corner of her mouth wrinkling towards distaste, and didn't bother trying to charm her.

'Well, you're here, aren't you?' she said, dryly. 'Only people here _from_ here. And nobody looking like you ever from anywhere like here.'

With his bathroom haircut, muddy fingernails, and Stanford sweatshirt, Bucky had very little idea of who he could look like. Must be missing some kind of context.

'My husband's folks took him camping out here a few times,' he tried, browsing the shelves. The sodium content on these broths was a little off-putting. Well - he'd just water them down for now, make it himself when Sam was a little better. 'Always talked about how...friendly the people were.'

The woman was silent behind him. Until: 'You the one that bought the Bergan cabin, then?' Aw, jeez. Flashy buys did not a good safehouse make. At least he now knew what kind of person Ernest Leahy had to be, though.

'As a gift, yes,' he said, absently, shutting down his every curiosity about her. 'I assume you take MasterCard?'

The woman went glacial. 'Cash only.'

Bucky pretended to find this very annoying, despite actually only having cash on him. 'Do you at least have any cycle steadies?'

'We don't sell those without a prescription,' she said, as if there wasn't an off-brand Cyclene right next to the Tylenol. A quick glance at her revealed he didn't really need to push anymore: she would readily believe Ernest Leahy was an entitled out-of-towner.

Con-side: if anyone came looking for him, or anyone looking like him, this woman would probably sell him out quick. Pro-side: she probably would be too annoyed to scrutinise his cover story.

Actually ... Con-side: if she didn't like him, she was more likely to suspect him (and maybe even Sam) of being up to no good.

But he'd put all that shit out there - only thing to do now was roll with it.

'Look, I'm sorry about before,' he said at the counter, not even trying to aw-shucks her. 'We had a long flight out here and barely got in before Zeke dropped-up and...I'm just real worried about him.' He shrugged. 'I didn't mean to take it out on you.'

'I'm still not selling you any cycle steadies,' the woman said, not unkindly. She pushed a little brown box toward him. 'But you can take some chamomile. Helps with the shakes.'

Bucky firmly bit down on the panic that reared up. Sam was going to have seizures? Were there even any spoons in that goddamn cabin? 'Th-thank you,' he said. 'Say, ah...do you know where I could rent a car?'

 

* * *

 

The woman's name was Tanya, and she lent him her ex-husband's pickup - $150 for the week. 'Course, the hills isn't great on the wheels long-term,' she pointed out. 'How long you all planning on staying up there?'

'Well, to the end of the month, if I'm lucky. Zeke's a bit of a workaholic, though,' he improvised, 'so I wouldn't be surprised if he drags me back home before the week's up.'

Tanya hmph'ed. 'If your husband's as bad-off as you say,' she said, 'he ain't going nowhere in a week.'

 

* * *

 

Bucky put the plugs in before he got out the truck; tripped a little, jogging up the cabin stairs. Stood in the doorway, panting and off-balance, before he realised he was letting out all the cool air. Closed the door, kicked off his boots - slidwalked across the empty hardwood floor till he got to the backroom, the carpet there soft even through his socks.

Didn't make up for the lack of smell at all, of course. Still - something in him went still and went quiet at the sight of Sam, dozed at an angle, sheets half-shoved aside.

Bucky came over on tip-toe, palmed Sam's forehead, came back with a cool cloth, wiped it smooth against the skin. Pulled Sam's shirt up and off, his sweats down and off. Blanked out his mind.

'Dry and hydrated, huh?' Bucky murmured, once his work was done, and the sheets were changed, and Sam had been wrestled back into thin, clean clothes. Steve's clothes. 'You're prolly thirsty, aren't you.'

Sam took the water easy enough, the soup and Tylenol (some hours later) less so. By then Nat had texted him an off-centre photo of Steve. Hard to see all of his features but it was quite clearly a man, a red-headed man, frowning at himself in the mirror.

_Tell Bud to put that thing away (his face) before he scares the children...!_

_lol ??_ Nat replied.

 _Guy is okay by the by_ , he typed. He took a moment to look at Sam, burrowed a little behind where he was sat, very near to the edge of the bed. _I think he is just asleep now. I am going to sleep myself. Good-bye, and I will speak with you tomorrow_.

The couch was cold and lumpy and hard. The moon shone in his face for hours.

He dreamt of Sam.

 

* * *

 

The shakes came at 2 or so in the morning, which Bucky only picked up on because of the sound the bedside lamp made once it was kicked to the floor. Sam went wild trying to scratch Bucky's eyes out when he tried to turn him on his side, and he trembled and went silent once Bucky hugged him from the back. He took in a shallow breath - and then pushed all of himself back against Bucky.

'Please,' said Bucky, hiding his face in the corner of Sam's neck. The sweat there smearing against his lips. 'Please don't, Sam.'

Sam sighed, slumped, and went still. Snored, even, a few seconds later.

Bucky went to the kitchen and downed two cups of chamomile. Really was good for the shakes.

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

The sun came, and with it - awareness. Here he was, Samuel Thomas Wilson III - abed with the worst fucking headache of all time. Lying beside his best friend's best friend, horny as hell.

'If you got me pregnant, Barnes,' he said, poking Bucky in the shoulder blade, 'I will kill you. Do not try me: I will kill.' Poke. 'You.' _Poke_.

Bucky rolled over. Whoa. That was a beard. Or an attempt at one, at least. Behind it, a very annoyed face peeked out.

'I -iihhn't geh _no-_ buddy preghnut,' Bucky said, scowling.

Sam stared at him. 'Ok, there, Mountain Man,' he murmured. 'I think you can take out the plugs now.' As a joke, he chucked Bucky's chin.

Bad idea: Bucky reared up and shoved him down onto his back. Bared his teeth right in Sam's face - and visibly struggled to stay still. Shut his eyes, even.

Sam looked up at him, smiled without meaning to. It was as if the fear of the man above him had been burned all up. He won't hurt me, he thought, slowly rolling his hips; not here.

'Sam, waauhhr you,' Bucky's voice cracked right down the middle, sour breath puffing all against Sam's face, 'waauhr you _doihh_ '?'

Poor Buck. His face all flushed, his nostrils all swollen, his beard all sad and scraggly. Pathetic. Sam leaned up and kissed the tip of his nose, watched Bucky's forehead go blotchy red.

'Whatever you want, man,' he said, laughing.

 

* * *

 

Condomless as they were, _whatever you want_ ended up meaning Bucky sucking him off so many times Sam literally had to kick him away.

'E- _nough_ ,' he said, voice shot. 'Lemme shower! I feel gross.'

'You're fine,' Bucky said, nuzzling and nosing his thighs. Creep. Also, _ow_.

'You definitely need to shave,' Sam said, yanking all his body parts away and standing to his feet. Oh, whoops - had the floor always been so uneven?

Bucky scoffed. 'Yea right, I'm shavin'.' He rolled over on the mattress to stare down at Sam on the floor. 'Try to be a li'l less in love with me and maybe I'll consider it.'

'You gone help me up, O Lover Mine?' Sam groused, ceiling-spun.

Bucky reached out his hand; Sam took it, and held on.

He'd lost eight days to this, this _thing_ that they'd done to him - and he could only stand to lose more. It didn't sound reversible, it didn't even sound possible - which meant that a whole 'nother set of assholes would be on their tail, hard. And splitting up didn't matter: the same people after him would settle for Natasha or Steve. Or Bucky.

No. He couldn't think about it. He wouldn't think about it.

In a distant way, he recognised that he was doing in his own life what he'd counselled people to never do: magnifying the problem by refusing to look at it head-on. The only way to really make peace with it - the it that would eat up his life if he let it - was to tackle it face-first.

Well...he could do all that another day. Later. Maybe.

Bucky squeezed his hand. 'How ya feel about soup?'

'Unimpressed,' he said, squeezing back. Bucky scowled. Sam sighed. 'But willing to compromise.'

Soup for days: there were worse things.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> blanket lol @ how i clearly backed out of writing a life-threatening diagnosis. dr dosanjh is like 'this is unpredictable! unprecedented! who knows what could happen! i'm really worried!' and by the end, it's pretty much just flu!fic. flu!fic, featuring a days' long fever. ahhhhh.


End file.
